NFL Exec VP/Media Brian Rolapp "has begun to experiment in hopes of finding the best way to get football to a public that is quickly adopting new forms of mobile and streaming consumption," according to Brian Steinberg of VARIETY. Rolapp's handiwork "can be seen" in the new "Thursday Night Football" package on CBS, NBC and Twitter. The pact "gives incentives to two big TV networks yet at the same time lets the NFL try to experiment with new media to gain a better understanding of how a new generation of fans will watch gridiron contests." Rolapp said of the Twitter deal, "We liked the idea that they were very mobile focused. Our whole philosophy entering into these Thursday-night negotiations is that we could use digital to drive incremental consumption, not cannibalize it, but increase it." He said if there is a saturation point with too much football, "we haven't seen it. It’s something we think a lot about." When asked if splitting "TNF" rights between two networks could create consumer confusion, Rolapp said, "There are a couple of things in the past few years that told us this consumer confusion, while a risk, didn’t overly concern us. When we did 'Thursday Night Football' with CBS, where we put half the games on CBS and half on the NFL Network, what we saw that consumption on both platforms went up. ... People will find it." Meanwhile, Rolapp believes when the league's current TV rights contracts expire in '22, fans "will continue to be digital," and they "will continue to be more mobile." He added, "I do think that television isn’t going away. Television, and broadcast specifically, will play a very strong role. But I think it will be different" (VARIETY.com, 5/4).
FOR THE BIRDS: Cantor Fitzgerald Analyst Youssef Squali said, despite shares of Twitter falling to their lowest ever, "What you're seeing Twitter doing is really pivoting from being a Facebook-like social platform to starting building awareness around the special events." The NFL "is one of them." Squali: "You have the Olympics, you have the European Champions League and you have obviously the elections, and what we're seeing is as they start nailing them down and as they improve their measurement and their analytics ... they should be able to see higher ad budgets coming their way." CNBC's Jon Fortt noted the Super Bowl was "great for CBS (and) should have been great for Twitter one would imagine" ("Squawk Alley," CNBC, 5/4).
